Though I haven’t yet missed an episode of Love Bites, I’m still not feeling like this NBC show is a solid for my TV viewing schedule. If it were canceled I wouldn’t have that large of a protest. And that’s not the way it should be.

In Love Bites “Sky High” we followed three stories – Judd and Colleen’s have to attend a christening while stoned; a nerdy freshmen gets a date with a hot senior; an astronaut in deep space suspects his girlfriend is cheating on him. By leaps and bounds, the first story was my favorite.

Sunday Fun Day

I like the self-aware, pop-culture ladden banter that plays out in the way I wish my own daily conversations went (but I don’t have the luxury of scriptingout my life ahead of time. And this is where I’d usually start to rant about one of the many reasons reality TV will never be as good as scripted TV…)

In this vignette, Dan uses his medical marijuana card to help out Judd and Colleen. And really, it was the only responsible thing to do, you see:

Colleen: “You guys are high? It’s 10:30.”
Judd: “We don’t have a choice, look what they have on TV. It’s a space walk. NASA would never broadcast stuff like that if they didn’t want us to wake ‘n bake.”

But it soon turns out that they’re supposed to go to a christening, where Judd is the Godfather for his brother’s baby, Eli. Generally we (as a nation) try not to attend church while stoned. But Judd and Colleen have to make an exception. I appreciate the dynamic between Constance Zimmer and Greg Grunberg as a couple – even though it seems like Grunberg is always in TV relationships with a small, angry brunette woman while he plays a lovable buffoon (re: Alias, Felicity). It’s a credit to the writing that a plot device as simple as a christening could be truly enjoyable to watch. I really loved what Colleen had to say about pantyhose and Jesus, lord knows that was ingrained in my head as a child.

The only thing I didn’t like was the ending of everyone singing – it was a little cheesy and had that edge of predictability to it. Do we always need everything tied up in a pretty little bow?Grade: A-

Kiss and Tell

We go back to high school for this. A high school freshmen gets a dream date with a senior hottie. Everything went well on this date, except for the kiss. He was such a bad kisser that the social networks were on fire with the news. …And somehow, none of his friends bothered to warn him before he showed up in school. Children – what are you using your technology for!?

Luckily, his best gal pal teaches him how to kiss. This wins back the favor of Ms. Popularity, only in time for her to be dumped. And I know you see where this is heading… because the two freshmen “nerds” are the ones meant to be.

This was a cute story, but again there was predictability, and it was hard to feel too invested in these characters.

Grade: C

I Need Space

An astronaut up in space gets the suspicion his girlfriend is cheating on him. This is an original plotline, and it’s almost funny. (Except, then I realize it’s probably kind of sad if it happens to you…And maybe I only think it’s funny because I have to make everything about space funny or else I get paralyzed with fear…Oh, I’m action-packed with issues, yes.)

The execution of this piece was a little odd, I kept waiting to find out that the girlfriend wasn’t the one cheating on him at all. Shrug. I also wondered how it is that people can basically Skype from the Earth to the Moon so easily, when did I miss that upgradable feature? And, I also felt bad that they littered in space.

Grade: C

I understand the premise of Love Bites is to have little bites of love (it’s punnerific), but I’d really like to see more of Annie (Becki Newton). I’ll keep watching for now, but I’m praying for less fluff.

What do you guys think? Are you liking this show, or finding it’s less and less a priority to watch?